Adding extra disk(s) to my zfs volume (upgraded to 9.1)

[Storms]

Hi,

I just upgraded to 9.1 and was curious if I could add an extra drive to my zfs volume. The user guide seems to imply that I can, but want some confirmation first.

So my setup is
3 x 2TB drives
12 GB RAM
RAIDZ1 (I think)

Can I add another 2TB drive into it seamlessly using the 'Extending a ZFS Volume' section of the user guide?It's just that i thoughht raidZ1 worked better with an odd number of drives, and i seem to remember reading somewhere when i initially set it up that you cant add to it (although that was a couple of years ago). So have things changed now, can i just plug in a new drive and still have the same level of redundancy (i.e. support for 1 disk failing)??


Also, I think I set up raidz1 but my memory's a little hazy... how can i check?
Thanks

 

[gpsguy]

No!

Can I add another 2TB drive into it seamlessly...

Once you create a vdev, you can't add additional drives to it. You could create a new vdev (say, another 3x2Tb RAIDz1) and add it to the pool. If one drive failed in either vdev, you'd still have your 1 drive redundacy.

If you were to add that single drive to your existing pool (I believe newer versions of FreeNAS prevent you from doing it in the GUI), were that drive to fail, you'd lose your entire pool.

Some user's will tell you that RAIDz1 is dead and that you ought to take this opportunity to back up all your data, destroy the pool and start over with RAIDz2.

To check what you're using, type: zpool status -v (in the console).

 

[Storms]

thanks for the informative reply...

i checked and it is raidz1... and i think i will take your advice and switch to raidz2

so im gonna need a new pc case that can hold 6 drives!
i'm gonna need 3 new 2TB drives
and i'm gonna need somewhere to backup my existing 4TB data (so another two drives)

so 5 x 2tb drives and a new pc case. so a much bigger more expensive machine which will be in our bedroom..... anyone know a good divorce lawyer?!?